


hearing things

by Areiton



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Except that last stupid scene in Endgame, Grief/Mourning, Happy Ending, M/M, POV Steve Rogers, Pining, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Steve Rogers Feels, sad Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-21
Updated: 2019-08-21
Packaged: 2020-09-23 00:34:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20331109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Areiton/pseuds/Areiton
Summary: Steve hears them.





	hearing things

You run a lot. 

Before--before it felt like you were running from something, or maybe toward it, like if you ran hard and fast maybe you’d catch up with the past that left you in the ice and move on without you. 

After--you run because you failed and this, this is not running away from a past you miss or toward a past you wish would wait for you. This is you running from your failure. 

You never can outrun it, but you run anyway. 

~*~ 

The first time it happens, your running through Brooklyn. The city is quiet, now, quieter than it was even when you were a boy, half of it gone and the other half held in breathless terror that one day they will be too. 

You run and you hear someone laughing, and you jerk around, so fast you sprain your ankle, searching for that big deep laugh, your heart pounding too hard. 

There’s no one there. 

Of course there isn’t. The streets are empty and the only sound is trickling from a TV through an open window, and you’re alone. 

Bucky’s laugh is just a hallucination, a dream carried on the wind. 

You fight your tears and limp home and curl in your bed, teeth chattering and alone. 

~*~ 

You’re running through the park, hear Sam call, “ _ On your left _ ,” and even knowing,  _ knowing _ it’s not him, you look. 

It’s a guy, pale and gaunt and haunted, and he spits at you, as he runs past. 

You don’t even blame him. 

~*~ 

You’re walking through the Tower lobby and hear Bucky bickering with Wanda. 

~*~ 

You’re pouring coffee and hear Sam’s sleep warm grumble. 

~*~ 

You’re sparring with Natasha and hear a wolf-whistle and look, instinctive for a wide, wicked smile and Sam’s gap-toothed grin, and Nat throws you to the ground and it knocks the breath from you, makes tears spring to your eyes as her Widow Bite digs teeth in and you think, yes.  _ This _ . This is better. 

For a moment, you don’t feel haunted. 

~*~ 

You get used to it. 

That’s not true--you never truly get  _ used _ to it. 

But it stops surprising you, hearing Bucky’s voice in a crowd and on your runs. Hearing Sam in the halls of the Compound and in group and while you run. 

You don’t get  _ used _ to it, but it becomes almost comforting. 

~*~ 

Natasha worries about you, in your quiet empty apartment. You see the way she watches you, when you go still, head cocked and listening, and you think you should reassure her or not listen to them when you’re with her. 

You don’t know how to tell her you’re glad you hear them, still. You don’t know how to tell her that you went a month without hearing Bucky or Sam and you’ve never wanted to eat a bullet more. 

It isn’t healthy, the way you cling to phantom voices, but it’s all you have. It’s no worse, you think, than the way she clings to the job, and a damn sight better than how Barton is handling things. 

~*~ 

You hear them most when you dream. 

Bucky’s voice, low and wicked, as familiar as your own heartbeat. 

Sam’s warm and deep, as reassuring as the tide, and both of them washing over you, and you wake aching and hard and come for them, spill across the bed you never shared with either of them, come with their whispered words and filthy promises in your ear and the sensation of their hands ghosting over you, a dream, a memory, a wish. 

You live for those dreams and hate them. 

~*~ 

Scott comes and brings hope and you stop running, stop dreaming, stop listening, stop doing anything that isn’t bringing them home. 

~*~ 

You stand, aching and bleeding, a shield shattered on your arm, and you hear them. 

You don’t look--not at first. 

“Cap.” 

You’ve heard them, so many times. Wanted them to be real, so long now. 

“Steve--Steve!” 

You want them to be real. 

“On your left,” he says, and you look. 

You look. 

Sam is  _ beautiful _ , sleek and deadly and wild and  _ alive _ and you--

You watch them, all of them, coming through the portals Strange and his people summon, watch them assemble behind you. 

Bucky steps up next to you, his place at your right hand finally filled and you listen. 

You listen to him breathing and Sam’s war whoop on the comms and you shove down your tears and go to finish it. 

~*~ 

You hear them. 

Always--in the kitchen fighting over coffee and in the gym while you spar and teasing while you run and in your bed. 

In your bed, their voices thick and wicked and sweet and dirty, and their touch is real and real and real. 

You hear them and when you come, gasping their names, they hear you. 


End file.
